Political compass for the21st century

[Bill the Piper]

(09-21-2018, 08:54 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I don't see either Reagan or Thatcher being as brutal or despotic as Putin, Khomeini, or Trotsky even if they could be abrasive. Maybe the Anglo-American tradition endures that their sort of traditionalism and free-market values implies respect for the rule of law and for the marketplace not only of merchandise but also of ideals. I never thought of Jerry Falwell as the sort to call for putting miscreants into concentration camps or mass graves, either. God might dam gays and lesbians to Hell, but that is not in Falwell's pay-grade.

So I'll have to move them closer to the centre. Thank you for feedback.

I agree with your comments about the Anglo-American tradition.

Quote:I could suggest a really-nasty fellow for an illustration of someone at the extreme between the free market and traditionalism, someone that I did not mention: Agosto Pinochet. He was a killer.

Good idea. He takes place of Thatcher, while Thatcher moves towards the centre. She was no killer after all.

Quote:...You could not place Samuel Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Robespierre, Napoleon, Lincoln, Juarez, Garibaldi, or even Wilhelm II, so perhaps this pentagon fits only the last century or so. The earliest figure that you could place was Marx, and probably only because he is so blatant that he defines an ideology as few others can. You would probably also have trouble with anyone from World War I or earlier except perhaps Marx. The only plutocrat in the group is Trump... I don't know where Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, or Bill Gates would go. I'd guess that the most blatant advocates of Gilded Age capitalism would be close to Ayn Rand. The willingness to mow down strikers might demonstrate the potential ruthlessness of free-market mavens.

Would Thomas Paine fit the borderline between counterculture and free-market advocacy?

I simply don't know enough about their political leanings of 18th and 19th century figures to answer that question. Washington and Jefferson were yellow, as they created the US as a primarily classical liberal country.

Gilded Age capitalists would be somewhere right from Ayn Rand, since they were heavily traditionalist.